An Air Self-Defense Force F-4 fighter jet caught fire Wednesday shortly before it was to depart for a training flight from a base in Ibaraki Prefecture, the ASDF said. No one was hurt in the incident as the two pilots escaped safely, according to the ...

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. plans to boost annual global sales and revenues by more than 30 percent over three years and introduce 11 new models, aiming to restore public trust after a fuel-efficiency data manipulation scandal. Under its midterm business plan through fiscal 2019, the automaker ...

Spending by foreign visitors in Japan is expected to set a new record this year, as it had already reached ¥3.28 trillion ($29.1 billion) through September, the Japan Tourism Agency said Wednesday. The pace is on course to shatter the record ¥3.75 trillion spending set ...

Nissan Motor says that improper safety inspections performed by unauthorized staff continued at one of its assembly plants even after the scandal came to light last month.

Support for the United State in Japan has dropped to the lowest level in nine years as only a quarter of Japanese say they have confidence in U.S. President Trump’s policies.

The Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, are poised to retain a two-thirds majority in the Lower House in Sunday’s election, a Kyodo News survey shows.

The U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa on Wednesday resumed flight operations of its CH-53E transport helicopters, insisting it has confirmed their safety following a crash-landing by one a week ago. A CH-53E took off Wednesday morning from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, ...

Rescuers on Wednesday said despite finding three helmets, none of the four crew members had been found at the site where an Air Self-Defense Force helicopter crashed the day before in waters off Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. The UH-60J helicopter disappeared from radar at around 6 ...

Chikara Imai, 73, is quick to dismiss the new parties in Sunday's national election, saying old ties with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party is what the country's most elderly village needs for survival. Nanmoku, 107 km (67 miles) northwest of Tokyo, is at ...

The top U.S. military commander in the Pacific warned the situation in North Korea is a "recipe for disaster," as the region prepares for U.S. President Donald Trump's first visit to the region. Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in a ...

Ikoma, a small city of about 120,000 people, lies just over the border from Osaka in northern Nara Prefecture. It's known for its bamboo products, especially whisks used in the traditional tea ceremony. A cable car that travels up Mount Ikoma, opened in 1918, ...

Haruta Saito, a young amputee who dreams of becoming a Paralympian, remembers strapping on a prosthetic "running blade" for the first time. The 10-year-old, whose right leg was amputated at age 2, never had the chance to use a blade because it was too expensive. That ...

The nation's coastal fishing industry, plagued by higher material costs, dwindling catches and an aging workforce, is implementing bold measures to turn around sagging revenues. The measures established by many fishing communities range from maintaining the freshness of fish in shipping to developing commercially viable ...

The Central Intelligence Agency thought for months that it had mistakenly shredded a massive U.S. Senate report on its use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" before suddenly discovering that its copy had not been lost after all, an agency official said Tuesday. "It's ...

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Lexus unit said on Tuesday it is evaluating its partnership with film and TV production firm The Weinstein Company after allegations that co-founder Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted a number of women. Lexus, Toyota's luxury brand, is a sponsor of reality ...

The Fukuoka Prefectural Police have filed charges against a man in his 30s from Dazaifu, Fukuoka Prefecture, who allegedly illegally discarded 585 CDs of the girls pop group AKB48 on a mountain, it was learned Tuesday. The police turned over to the prosecutor's office Monday ...

Airbus SE's acquisition of a majority stake in Bombardier Inc.'s C Series plane threatens to leave Boeing Co. trailing in a looming race to develop a new generation of more advanced short-haul jets. At one level, the deal appears to be neat way of providing ...

The seven Japan Railways Group companies have announced that they will offer a special across-Japan sightseeing tour plan using 24 select trains, including the Cassiopeia overnight limited express, whose regular operations ended in March last year. The joint project, announced on Tuesday, is among events ...

Compelling economic and geopolitical factors are drawing Japan and India closer.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's unusual election call was designed to head off Diet questioning that could have put him in serious trouble.

Lack of legal regulation means the worst facilities continue to taint Japan's image abroad.

Japanese citizens in Kansai's commercial capital were asked whether they plan to cast a ballot in the Oct. 22 Lower House poll — and why (or why not).

The 22nd Busan International Film Festival, which opened Oct. 12 and ends Saturday, seemed to be in better shape this year. Last year, various South Korean film industry groups boycotted Asia's biggest film event, which for the past three years has been caught up in ...

In his nearly three decades as a director, "Beat" Takeshi Kitano has won many critical plaudits and prizes abroad. But in Japan he is best known as a TV personality and comedian. These two strands of his artistic personality — master director and mass ...

Japanese road movies are many; ones featuring high school kids, relatively few. One was Daigo Matsui's 2015 "Our Huff and Puff Journey," about four high school girls in Fukuoka who set off on their commuter bikes to see a concert in Tokyo. The premise of ...

In the end it was just too kinky for the Louvre. The world's most visited museum shied away from displaying a sculpture that some have labeled as too sexually explicit, but the nearby Pompidou Centre on Tuesday decided the world needed to decide for itself. Standing ...

Kosuke Tanaka broke the ice with a two-run, tiebreaking single in the fifth inning, as the Hiroshima Carp opened the Central League playoffs' final stage with a 3-0 win over the Yokohama BayStars in a game called after five innings because of rain. The Carp, ...

Urawa Reds advanced to the final of the Asian Champions League for the first time since 2007 with a 2-1 aggregate win over China's Shanghai SIPG after winning Wednesday's semifinal second leg 1-0. Rafael Silva scored in the 11th minute to put Urawa ahead at ...

The format for the men's FIBA World Cup qualifiers has been changed from a tournament format to a system that will see teams play each other in home-and-away contests. Which also means the participating players will have to compete for their respective national teams during ...

Rika Kihira's bronze medal at the Junior Grand Prix in Egna and Bologna, Italy, on Saturday was good enough to qualify her for the JGP Final for the second straight season, but it didn't come easy. After a wonderful short program on Friday that saw ...

There is probably nobody else in Japan who devotes themselves to basketball as much as Takehiko Orimo, who, at age 47, is still a competitive player and also serves as president of the Levanga Hokkaido. In fact, he has recently taken on another role, as ...

Japan was beaten by England 5-3 in a penalty shootout after a goalless 90 minutes in the round of 16 at the Under-17 World Cup in India on Tuesday. Yukinari Sugawara, Taisei Miyashiro and Soichiro Kozuki scored for Group E runner-up Japan, which was aiming ...